New Concepts in Maritime Detection

Detection in the maritime domain requires the radar return from targets to be distinguishable from the background interference. These radars traditionally use non-coherent processing due to the time-varying and range-varying nature of the Doppler spectra. However, as radar platforms fly higher and look down at steeper angles, the sea clutter power will increase and traditional methods will not be as effective. This talk covers three new approaches for target detection in the maritime domain. These include the use of stationary wavelet transforms to isolate different spectral features, the use of sparse signal separation algorithms and the application of the single snapshot coherent detector. Each of these techniques is demonstrated using using either real or realistic simulated sea clutter and shows good potential when compared to traditional processing methods.